Mozambique gets $62M World Bank grant for improved statistics

The World Bank has approved a grant of $62 million to develop higher quality statistics in Mozambique, APA can report on Monday.

The World Bank says the project aims to improve the production and dissemination of socioeconomic statistics, as well as support the use of data in evidence-based policy making.

“Mozambique’s high economic growth patterns of the past decades have not been successfully translated into equally strong poverty reduction and performance in poverty reduction has been uneven across the
country’s regions.

Welcoming the decision, the Bank’s representative in Mozambique, Mark Lundell, said “the use of data for development planning and decision making cannot be overemphasised”.

The official added, “we want to strengthen the foundations of a virtuous cycle that ranges from producing more, better, and accessible statistics; more regular use of it in policy making; to a stronger commitment to accountability and transparency by the government”.

The World Bank argues that few national agencies produce comprehensive spatially disaggregated data and it states, that “there is little awareness about the strategic use of cross-sectoral spatial analysis for evidence-based planning and decision making. Data sets are dispersed across ministries and agencies, and there is a lack of an integrated strategic data approach across government agencies”.

The World Bank says that an effective integration of all aid flows into the national planning and budgeting process is needed.

According to the project’s team leader, Javier Baez, “by contributing to improved transparency of data, statistics, and aid flows, this project supports greater accountability in the use of public funds and
ultimately benefits the wider public”.

The project is part of the World Bank’s Country Partnership Framework (CPF) with Mozambique for the 2017-2021 period, which will involve total funding of about $1.7 billion.

The CPF focuses on a set of objectives reflecting the Mozambican government’s five-year programme; development priorities identified by the World Bank; and the World Bank group’s comparative advantages.